Short Takes

Reviewed “The Order,” “Love Hurts” and “The Gorge”

‘The Order’ (2025)

Relatively new to streaming and taking a recent dip in rental price, this crime drama from Justin Kurzel (“Nitram”) dials back the clock to the 1980s Pacific Northwest, where the rise of white supremacist hate groups was a thing. The gritty take-’em-down thrills start as burned-out FBI agent Terry Husk (Jude Law) settles into the remotes of Idaho to decompress after a heart attack and years of wrangling with the mafia in NYC. But Husk is a gruff, suspicious sort who won’t let it go after he walks into a missing-person case that the local police don’t want too much exposure on – they know the terrain and are widely deferential to the well-armed Aryan Nation groups in the area that believe the time has come for the white man to take back his soiled lands. That missing soul was part of the sect of the title, a militant group led by Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult, looking even more boyish than usual, if that was even possible), an extremist ideologue and master planner. Bob and “The Order” are behind the missing (because he talked too much), a series of brazen bank and armored car heists (all staged deftly) and the murder of Colorado Jewish talk radio personality Alan Berg (Marc Maron) for sparring on-air with antisemitic callers. Much of this, based on Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt’s “The Silent Brotherhood,” is factual (Berg’s on-air battles and demise was portrayed with riveting aplomb by Eric Bogosian in Oliver Stone’s 1988 “Talk Radio”), through Law’s agent is a fictionalized insert – and a highly effective one. In the mix are Tye Sheridan (“Ready Player One,” “The Card Counter”) as the lone officer in the sheriff’s department willing to step in and help Husk chase down leads, and Jurnee Smollett (“True Blood”) as Husk’s fellow FBI agent and a voice of reason. The film doesn’t work without Law, who’s nearly unrecognizable as the disheveled, on-the-edge sort – his usual British charm and disarming accent are nowhere to be found. His Husk is more junkyard cur than fine-fleeced Westminster purebred, and not too far off from Don Johnson’s hot wreck of a cop in John Frankenheimer’s “Dead Bang” (1989), who also tangled with militant supremacists in the Pac-Northwest. It’s a transformative turn that should have been recognized by the Academy, but Law’s gritty go, and the film, somehow dropped off the radar; here’s your chance to get it on yours.

‘Love Hurts’ (2025)

Good, silly beatdown thrills with V-Day rom-com flourishes that features an A-list pairing of recent Oscar winners Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) and Ariana DeBose (“West Side Story”). The sharply choreographed, hyperkinetic action sequences stick it while the romantic angle lands on some wobbly knees. Part of that’s that the film’s the directorial debut of Jonathan Eusebio, a stunt coordinator with impressive credits such as the “John Wick” series and “The Matrix Resurrections” (2021). You’ve got to work your strong suit, right? The mealy script is written by a team (generally never a good thing) and feels like the romantic elements were shoehorned in after all the fight scenes were laid out on the storyboard. Quan plays Marvin, a buttoned-up, cheery real estate agent in Milwaukee (the film was actually shot in Canada) with a secret former life as an assassin. One day, the local heavy in town, a slick, stylish mob boss who goes by the moniker Knuckles (Daniel Wu), sends in “The Raven” (Mustafa Shakir) to Marvin’s office to extract the whereabouts of Rose (DeBose), another assassin who has recently made off with Knuckles’s last haul – a cool $4 million. The hunt for Rose is all about getting to the next mob hangout, open house showing or gritty dive where Marvin, traveling mostly by bike, gets into another smackdown and, despite all the bruises and broken glass, tries to maintain his outward appearance of mild-mannered broker – Jackie Chan did this kind of stuff in his sleep. As Marvin’s snarky, dour assistant, Lio Tipton provides dry comic relief, ex-NFL-er Marshawn Lynch and André Eriksen add chuckles as the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of goons. The best, however, may be the use of a boba tea straw as a lethal weapon. As far as the love goes, it hurts to say there is near-zero chemistry between Quan and DeBose; they’re hardly onscreen together, and when they are, they’re dodging knives and ninjas. Mercifully, the film is under 90 minutes.

‘The Gorge’ (2025)

Another kick-ass pairing of talent that titillates on paper but disappoints in actuality. Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy play freelance operatives contracted mostly by governments to do covert hits. Each is a master sharpshooter able to take out a target at 3,000 meters without a thought. Teller’s Levi, addled by PTSD, represents the West or United States, while Taylor-Joy’s Drasa is the East’s assignee (ostensibly Russian, though she’s Lithuanian by birth), as the two are stationed for a year on opposite sides of a mist-filled ravine that goes on as far as the eye can see into the wilderness. Where is never made clear, as each is blindfolded, stripped of all modern devices – smartphones, GPS tech and the like – and airdropped in. The assignment is to maintain and guard watchtowers perched on opposing precipices. From what threat, you might ask? It’s not the person across the gorge. When you find out what lurks below, it’s kinda silly, but Teller and Taylor-Joy make the nonsense watchable as they flirt via handwritten messages viewed via binocular from across the abyss. The sci-fi MacGuffin-driven drama, helmed by “Doctor Strange” (2016) director Scott Derrickson, notches high production values, but the main and only reason the film works is Taylor-Joy, sleek and alluring in a cropped black bob, all business and ninja nimble in great action sequences but also evoking free-spirited fun as her Drasa dances in the dark to a veritable soundtrack of ’90s alterna-pop. The score by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor is another small victory, but it feels borrowed from past collaborations (“The Social Network”) and Reznor’s 9-to-5 gig (Nine Inch Nails) – which is not a bad thing, but.